Stories

Tom is 17 and looking forward to his first family Christmas in five years, after leaving his orphanage and moving home with his dad, stepmother, grandmother and sisters.

Minela spent the first precious months of her life alone in an orphanage with no one to comfort or cherish her. Here, her mother Lana shares how she lost her baby daughter - and how she fought, with our help, to get her back. 

When Mihai lived in the orphanage, he had a roof over his head and food on his plate but he was always hungry for he thing he needed most: love.

Covid stole Sonia's father. Then it nearly stole her childhood too. But thanks to our local partner, she’s no longer at risk of entering an orphanage.

Aimé de Jesus is a remarkable young man.  This week, he’ll be speaking to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child about his experiences of orphanages and alternative care.  But this isn’t the first time he’s taken on the role of human rights defender on the world’s biggest stage. 

Like so many children, Tika had been taken from his family by traffickers. For a high fee, they promised his parents that he would be well cared for and educated in an institution in the city. Instead, he was taken to an orphanage.

Devi lost her mum on a crowded railway platform and spent seven years alone in India’s orphanage system. Then she met Nipa, the woman who would help her find her way back home.

Like untold numbers of women Esmeralda faced an impossible choice; stay with a violent husband, or leave and risk losing her children to an orphanage. This is her story.

Valerie is a courageous woman who has overcome many obstacles to care for her children alone. With our support, Valerie was able to train as a tailor and begin to build a more secure future for her family by making and repairing clothes.

Alemadina spent three years by herself in the biggest orphanage in Bosnia & Herzegovina. Now she has a new mum to care for her, and to let her know that she belongs.

Today, Kaloyan and Maria are the centre of attention in a happy home. But the twins spent their first five months in an orphanage, because social prejudice and poor health meant their parents could not care for them alone.

Keeping their family together is the best way to keep Paul and his siblings safe.

“We used to be distressed, wondering how our child was being treated in the institution but now we are quite sure of how he is treated because he is in our hands.”

On this day we bring you Galina's story: Faced with the terrible dilemma of having her children sent to an orphanage if she left her violent husband, her courage and determination meant that she is now able to bring her children up within the love and safety of a family.

In the 15 years he spent  growing up in an orphanage in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Alex never knew what it meant to feel safe. He had three meals a day but he was always hungry for love. He now lives a loving foster family.

Growing up with his older sisters to love and protect him, baby Haris is never likely to be short of playmates, cuddles or helpful advice. But without the courage and commitment of his mum, Esmeralda, this happy childhood would have all too easily been stolen from him.

Without the right help at the right time, made possible by your generous support, Radion was in danger of spending his childhood confined to a loveless institution. Instead, he’s free to enjoy the adventure of growing up with a mum and brothers to love and protect him.

Jacinta had dropped out of school to help her family earn enough to support her. She was at great risk of being sent to live in an orphanage, to keep her safe from the traffickers who prey on young girls in Jharkhand state. Read about our work in India.

Around the world, March 8 is recognized as International Women’s Day. This week we celebrate the women whose acts of courage and determination have kept their families together, and their children free to grow up in the family; not in an orphanage. Read Grace's story.

This week we celebrate the women whose acts of courage and determination have kept their families together, and their children free to grow up in the love and safety of a family; not in an orphanage. Read Nduwayo's story.

Imagine being fed just once a day, sleeping on a floor crawling with insects and only having your nappy changed every 3 days. This was Uwera's life in an orphanage.

By the end of the year, our specialist team in Moldova, had succeeded in matching Nikita with a caring couple who are experienced foster parents. “His sadness was transformed into happiness” says Livia.

Jonathan was five-years-old when he arrived at the orphanage in Western Uganda. Watch the video as he describes what it was like to live in an orphanage and to be visited by voluntourists from the UK.

Nikita has only just turned four but he will have no one to help him hang up his stocking or decorate a tree this Christmas.

This is the Yambol orphanage in Bulgaria – an institution for children under the age of three. September 2018, when the last child left to join a loving family, Yambol was closed for good.

An accident when she was just seven condemned Lorette to a lonely childhood in a series of Rwandan orphanages. The last of these was the Gahanga institution for children with disabilities in Kigali, which we are now working to close. This is her story.

Dima is an outgoing 14-year-old who takes an interest in the world around him. For most of his childhood though, no one took any interest in him.

Living on the streets with a baby to care for, Katya desperately sought help. The ‘help’ turned out to be a slavery operation that kept her daughter imprisoned and sent her back onto the streets to beg.

Maria was very young when her Mum died – about four years old she thinks but she’s not sure. Neglected by her alcoholic father, she spent most of her childhood in a loveless orphanage and never learned the life skills she would need to care for her own family. 

Rukhiya Budden is the first to say that today, she leads a very privileged life. She lives in a lovely home in Buckinghamshire with her husband and their three beautiful daughters. But her own childhood could not have been more different.

Joseph was born with cerebral palsy and abandoned as a baby. He was taken to an orphanage and spent most of the first nine years of his life, lying in a cot or on the floor, unable to move.

Chloe is a tiny little girl who looks as if she might be about two or three years old. In reality though, her true age is probably closer to ten.

As she cleared up the dishes, Rhinah heard a noise from the back yard. Peering out into the semi-darkness from the kitchen window, she could just make out a small bundle, lying on the ground at the edge of her property. She heard another cry and ran outside to investigate. When she unwrapped the bundle she discovered a tiny baby girl; Sylvia, then just a few days old.

Without our support, Edin's family were in danger of losing their children to an orphanage. Against the odds, they are now able to provide a real home for their children; a home where Edin can grow up feeling loved and knowing that he belongs.

Cary was only seven when her mother left her in a remote orphanage for children with disabilities in Rwanda because she could no longer cope without support.

No one wants to have their photo taken when they’re at rock bottom. And sadly, this Christmas in Romania, Viorel and his family are in a desperate situation.

Gihozo is four years old and is the apple of her family’s eye, but as a small baby the authorities insisted she was given up to an orphanage. Her story explains why.

Giselle was born with multiple disabilities and spent the first five years of her life ignored and neglected in a crowded orphanage in Rwanda.

When Ivo was born, his family had nowhere permanent to live and no income. Without help, his mother, Tatyana, thought she might have to leave her son in an orphanage.

Petya and Ivan Petrovi had spent years longing for a second child. But when their son, Georgi, was born, the midwives and doctors at the hospital behaved as if something terrible had happened.

Azra Čaušević is a happy, high-spirited little girl who lives with her mother, Alma, in a village in Bosnia and Herzegovina.